c. 1997 Religion News Service

ALBANY, N.Y. _ When he was mayor of Boston, Raymond Flynn knew where to turn whenever racial tensions threatened to explode. He’d talk with leaders of black Baptist churches, Catholic churches, the Nation of Islam _”anybody who had influence over the community and the stability of the city.” Now, as he winds down his tenure as U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, Flynn said the same lesson applies in global politics: Often the true influence in a community comes not from political but from religious leaders. Yet, he said, his American diplomatic colleagues often underestimate religion’s importance.”Career diplomats are trained there’s a strict separation of church and state, so they don’t really get it,”Flynn told an audience Monday (March 10), at the State University of New York at Albany during a U.S. visit.

The high-profile Flynn said he plans to leave his Vatican post in July after a four-year tenure highlighted by a number of humanitarian missions as well as two State Department reprimands and demands _ rebuffed _ from Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., that he be fired.

Flynn, who may run for Massachusetts governor in 1998, said he first plans to write a book about religion and world politics.”So much of the problems are rooted in religious differences,”he said.”Everybody’s quick in the United States to distance themselves from the religious components. They’d rather deal with the issue as being political.” Yet a proper understanding is crucial for American foreign policy, he said.”If we are going to be asked to send troops, finances or whatever into various areas of the world, then we’d better understand that there’s a religious component to this whole situation.” While religious leaders have been accused of fomenting violence in such places as Northern Ireland, the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, Flynn said he had only encountered religious leaders working for peace during his visits to those lands.

During a trip to Northern Ireland, he observed that Catholic and Protestant political leaders drew almost no one to their rallies, while church leaders drew hundreds to an ecumenical peace gathering.”The political leaders had absolutely no credibility,”he said.”On issues of peace and justice, it really is the religious leaders who have the credibility.” Although Northern Ireland’s religious leaders were reluctant to be drawn into the details of the debate, Flynn said that wasn’t necessarily their role so much as to dispel hatred and distrust.”I think they can move the ball halfway up the field in terms of the peace process,”he said.

American diplomats need to make overtures to such influential leaders, Flynn said, noting with dismay that he was the first American official to meet with the top Catholic leader in Rwanda, a devoutly Catholic nation devastated by genocide.

Flynn cited one obvious example of Americans’ underestimating the role of religion overseas: the 1979 Iranian revolution. The true power, it turned out, was not the shah but the Ayatollah Khomeini.

During his Vatican tenure, Flynn fulfilled his goal of expanding the ambassador’s role into that of a roving humanitarian envoy, working on relief and aid efforts in India, Uganda, Kenya, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia and elsewhere. But he received two State Department reprimands: one for using campaign funds while ambassador and for having an embassy employee manage family finances, the other for voicing opinions on U.S. politics.

In the second incident, as Flynn tells it, he predicted that Pope John Paul II would alter the debate about the Republicans’ Contract with America during the pontiff’s 1995 visit to the United States.”I hate to say this publicly, but I was right,”Flynn said.”He was the only person who had the standing and the courage to speak about issues of immigration, so-called welfare reform, taking away food stamps, taking away nutrition programs.” Flynn, who served as Boston’s mayor from 1984 to 1993, told RNS he may run for Massachusetts governor in 1998. As an anti-abortion Democrat, he would face considerable hurdles in a state that strongly favors abortion rights, but Flynn said that’s not the only factor leaving him feeling increasingly like a man without a party.”I’m disappointed to some degree in the Democrats turning their backs on the poor,”he said.

MJP END SMITH